Mosbacher's Response: All God's Children

Dr. Dee Mosbacher thinks African-American churches should know the truth
about gay and lesbian people, and she is providing it in a new documentary
called "All God's Children."

The film was created to counteract the effects of a video called "Gay
Rights, Special Rights" produced by Lou Sheldon, the leader of the
Traditional Values Coalition in Anaheim, California. Sheldon's video has
been widely distributed to African-American churches, but it portrays a
distorted image of gay and lesbian people.

Mosbacher's nearly 30-minute response features a mostly black, mostly gay
and lesbian choir singing gospel music and contains interviews with African-American
leaders who support gay and lesbian rights. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Senator
Carol Moseley-Braun and Congresswoman
Maxine Waters are among the black pastors and leaders who are interviewed.
Producers delayed release of the film to add comments from composer and
producer Quincy Jones.

Harvard professor Cornell West is also interviewed.

"If I have one word for fellow Christians, I would ask them to keep
their eyes on the love of Jesus and to not confuse the blood at Calvary
with the Koolaid of homophobia in America," West said in the video.
"By being open enough to everybody, it means that we have to call into
question our own particular prejudices that we inherit that have nothing
to do with the loving gospel of Jesus."

The images in Mosbacher's film challenge the opinions in Sheldon's production.

Sheldon, who is featured in his production, also includes interviews with
former U. S. Attorney General Edwin Meese and Christian Coalition leader
Ralph Reed. The video defines what it calls "four myths" that
gays and lesbians promote, including the "myth" that homosexuals
are a
minority and the "myth" that homosexuals are ten percent or more
of the population.

"Gay Rights/Special Rights" also uses an interview with a register
nurse who said homosexuals "lick one another's rectums" and "urinate
on each other."

"The gay agenda is to have sex in any way you please," the female
nurse said.

"We are on the very verge of our civilization and our culture being
totally overhauled by the homosexual community," Sheldon said.

Mosbacher said it is particularly important to counter this production aimed
at the African-American community to keep the religious right from dividing
two minority groups who share common interests. She hopes to find individuals
and groups who will "adopt-a-church" by showing the video to a
congregation and presenting educational materials.

She said this kind of grassroots approach to churches can be effective.
The offensive must be led "not with secular tools but with spiritual
tools," she said.

"One of my hopes for the film... is to try to build some bridges and
coalitions between our communities," Mosbacher said.

This is not the first venture of Woman Vision, her production company. It
produced "Straight from the Heart," a 24-minute Academy Award
nominated short documentary about parents who had difficulty accepting their
gay and lesbian children. It tells the story of several families, including
a police chief who is proud of his lesbian daughter, a Mormon family whose
son is believed the first in Idaho to die of AIDS and a black woman with
two lesbian daughter.

Mosbacher, a mental health physician who left practice to devote her time
to film-making, is also the daughter of Robert Mosbacher, the Secretary
of Commerce during the Bush administration. She is a long-time activist
in the San Francisco area.

She produced the film with Dr. Frances Reid, who also coproduced "Straight
from the Heart," and Dr. Sylvia Rhue, a co-founder of the National
Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum.

"Words and images are powerful," Rhue said at the Dallas premiere.
"They do affect our lives."

Mosbacher agreed. She said that is why she is doing something about Sheldon's
videotaped attack against the gay and lesbian community.

"We can't just sit still and take whatever the religious right is dishing
out," Mosbacher said.

"All God's Children" can be ordered from Transit Media Film Library
by calling 800-343-5540.